STYLING

HOW TO WEAR: LONG COATS FOR FW17

By Matt Glazebrook, November 30, 2017

Choosing your winter coat is one of the more high pressure sartorial decisions you’ll make all year. Do you go for a classic cut that’ll see you right cold season after cold season (your fail-safe parkas, bombers and puffas)? Or something a bit more on-trend, that’ll have you turning city pavements into chilly concrete catwalks? If it’s the latter route you take, consider an ankle-scraping, extra-long overcoat — last seen sweeping its way through FW17 shows from the likes of Balenciaga, Dries van Noten and Martine Rose. Here are three ways to style one...

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Traditional patterns like tweed and Prince of Wales check have had the dust shaken off them this season and have been refreshed via some unlikely sartorial mash-ups. From Louis Vuitton to Gosha Rubchinskiy, designers have been dressing down old-school outerwear with modern sportswear styles — think hoodies, slogan sweats and full tracksuit get-ups.

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Contrast a retro check overcoat with futuristic neon via this graphic hoodie. Navy joggers with a side-stripe and crisp white Stan Smiths are a low-key accompaniment that will help the style-clash up top really pop.

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Print-clash cool

Sweeping around in a floor-grazing dark wool coat can get a bit gothic, especially now the nights have drawn in. Adding a couple of competing prints to the mix, along with a judicious splash of pastel color, will lighten the mood nicely, while maintaining the overall '80s art student vibe.

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Windowpane checks offer a subtler bit of surface detail, especially picked out in white on navy wool. Pair these with pin-stripes in the same palette down below for a laid-back print clash and add a pale pink graphic tee for a fresh accent. Finish with hi-top old-school basketball kicks and a cheeky turtleneck.

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Normcore nights

The camel trench coat is a cult classic for good reason. Worn as a lighter-weight transitional layer in recent years, this year’s take on the trench is a bulkier affair, more reminiscent of the style worn by movie private eyes and hitmen, like Alain Delon’s ice-cold Le Samouraï.

Pictures: ASOS

Leave the fedora at home for FW17, and belt your trench over some ultra-casual straight-leg jeans and dad sneakers for a normcore version of the classic cover-up. Keep things cozy with forest-green knit underneath and add a white half-zip for an extra level of layering.